Funny mistranslations from around the world

Every translator, linguist, language lover and grammar nazi has been there. Wherever we travel, our eyes are checking everything around us for grammar and translation mistakes.

The following mistranslations are some of the most ‘famous’ ones, they can be found in many webpages online. I won’t talk about the importance of professional translation services to avoid such (sometimes grave) mistakes, I’ll just let you enjoy the hilarious translation blunders.

Restaurants & menus

Restaurant window: Don’t stand there and be hungry. Come on in and get fed up.On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.In a Nairobi restaurant: Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager.In a New Zealand restaurant: Open seven days a week, and weekends too.A menu in Vienna: Fried milk, children sandwiches, roast cattle and boiled sheep.At a Korean restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand: We do not re-use the food.

Newspapers & magazines

In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.From the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

Airplanes & airports

Instructions on a Korean flight: Upon arrival at Kimpo and Kimahie Airport, please wear your clothesAeroflot advert: Introducing wide boiled aircraft for your comfortIn a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.On an airsickness bag on a Spanish aeroplane: Bags to be use in case of sickness or to gather remains.

Shops

In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.In a Bangkok dry cleaner’s: Drop your trousers here for best results.Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find they are best in the long run.

Cars & road signs

A sign on a car in Manila, Philippines: Car and owner for sale.A sign at a vehicle repair shop in Bali Indonesia: Cat Oven.On a highway sign in Australia: Take notice: when this sign is under water; this road is impassable.From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.Detour sign in Kyushu, Japan: Stop: Drive Sideways.

Doctors

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.Doctor’s office, Rome: Specialist in women and other diseases.

Other

On a South African building: Mental health prevention centre.Sign at Mexican disco: Members and non-members only.A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.A laundry in Rome: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours — we guarantee no miscarriages.Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?Sign over the information booth in a Beijing railroad station: Question authorityIn an Italian cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves.On the faucet in a Finnish washroom: To stop the drip, turn cock to right.In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.Instructions for a soap bubble gun: While solution is not toxic it will not make child edible.At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.A barbershop in Zanzibar, Tanzania: Gentlemen’s throats cut with nice sharp razors.

52 thoughts on “Funny mistranslations from around the world”

You definitely outdid yourself this time, Catherine! I just could not stop laughing out loud, like a demented person, since I was alone, and tears were streaming down my cheeks. Now I must go and wash out/remove what remains of my eye-makeup!

Hehehe, that’s what happened to me too when I did the research for this post 🙂 Christos had given me the book as a present and then I looked up mistranslations on the Web, there are so many and it was hard to concentrate because I was laughing so hard!

Your right about that, Catherine. I just can’t emphasise enough to my clients that these mistakes, while funny here, may cost them a contract on the global market. Feedback from Ireland tells me that too often this type of thing comes up in their correspondence with Dutch clients, or worse still on websites and in official documents.

This was really funny, but do you really thing the one about the Australian road sing is a mistranslation? Maybe it was just written by someone with a great sense of humor. And it can’t be denied that what it states is surely true!

February 23, 2013 at 11:48

arnon

In Israel we have a lot of mistranslation, some are really famous and have groups collecting them. I encounterd some bizzare ones as a technical translator that have a potential of doing a lot of damage.

1.
source: “In case of emergency, when red light is flickering and a loud siren horn is sounded turn valve ### 90 degrees to the right.”
translation of translatio: In case of emergency, when red light is flickering and a loud siren horn is sounded turn your Volvo 90 degrees in the right direction.
probably happend because: the translator didnt know what “valve” means so he just did a visual translation, in hebrew it comes out as the car company.

2.
source: “When unpacking the machine it is important to use the proper lifting machinery, use a crane or a specially modified forklift.”
translation of translation: crane became the bird, forklift was translated as fork lift.
probably happend because: the translator used google translate and didnt bother to check.

3.
source: “If spring ## breaks replace it with a new spring”
translation of translation: spring became the season and break became vacation, but only on the first part of the sentence.
probably happend because: the translator used google translate and didnt bother to check.

There were many others, hope you like these, i can post more if you do.

If a layman does not understand the terminology (jargon),his translation will be very funny.
Nearly four decades ago, a Chinese translator mistranslated a sentence on technical manual:
when the dog jumps over, the valve opens up.He or she misunderstood the dog as animal and the valve as a petal,the readers(workers) tried to find animal and plant,but in vain.

oooh, and the Australian one, too. But thes are just the normal road signs, here 🙂

February 25, 2013 at 10:12

Zinaida

Absolutely hilarious! Will share it on my FB page and on a Russian social network. Many of my contacts are translators and interpreters and I definitely want my colleagues to have a good laugh too. I’ve been seeing similar things in Russia and wherever I travel, always feeling like sharing with others. Thank you for the post!

@Hiromi Thank you very much for the correction, post has been updated.
@Petra You’re right, but maybe they were written by non-native speakers or they meant for the signs to be funny? In the second case, they took it a bit far though 🙂

February 25, 2013 at 21:16

George Tabisz

Not a translation but an actual sign in a London travel agency window:

Round the world trip —2000 £ return.

February 26, 2013 at 08:50

Wenang Utami

Thanks, Catherine… It’s really hilarious!!! My favorites are those at the Airports and Airplanes.

By the way, I have something to share about “Cat Oven” which is found in Bali (Indonesia). I’m Indonesian.
Cat [chat] is Indonesian word for paint.
cat (Indonesian) = paint (English)
Maybe it should be “Oven Baked Car Painting”

I remember a friend of mine from England found this sign, and he said that Indonesians were cruel that they put cats in the oven and sell them in a garage while you were waiting for your cars repaired.
I was laughing and told him the story about this “cat”.

Nothing better than to start the morning off with a good laugh! Every now and then I find some funny/awkward translations on commercials appearing in the Spanish speaking networks.

February 26, 2013 at 16:17

GLORIA

Has any one seen this sign in an English narrow lane?
“slow down for foxes sake”
I nearly crashed the car, I was laughing so hard
Thanks for all the mistranslations around the world, great to keep and read often

February 26, 2013 at 22:08

Cecilia Saenz

I spend all the time I had dedicated for work just reading these mis -translations. Thank you. A good laugh was better this time.

Once I was watching an American movie translated into Portuguese and in one of the dialogues between two guys talking about a third one, it came: “Pudera, ele estava polindo a maça do presidente!” Instantly, I split my sides laughing and figured that the original should be: “What a heck, he was apple polishing the president” !!!

A colleague bought a vegetable peeler, and the translated instructions on the package were so funny that I put them on my web site. A scan from the original may be found at the end of http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/save-money-.html

I also received some automobile test reports in hardcore Chinglish.
Try to decipher the following handpicked phrases:

It should be parallel in parking the surface on the road of vehicle to light the basic axis with the signal installation. In addition, reply the reflector and side marker light as to the side, Its basic axis must be perpendicular to the longitudinal symmetrical level of vehicle, All other signal installations of basic axis is parallel to it. The difference of permitting in each direction is 3.

Before it connect circuit should guarantee location light, behind location light, last lights wide (if install), and license plate light can only more open or more close at the same time side marker light (if install), But it is at present location light, behind location light, it is as staying car light using for marker light side (compound or when not mixing) when, situation described above is not applicable.

It connect circuit it is before not should guaranteeing location light, behind location light, last lights wide (if install), side marker light (when install) and the license plate light is turned on, far-reaching headlamp, low beam light and the previous fog light could be opened. But while sending the caution signal in the far-reaching headlamp and low beam light, situation described above is not applicable.

Person who hide at the head-light, ascending position its should prevent any from use for, send out intermittence work at the same time by additional head-light of optical signal during daytime only as four installation.

Visibility to send grain side (from observe direction seem visibility of area given out light to seem), Must guarantee crowd diffusion that bus bar form at girth its in the area. The contained angle among this area and basic axis of head-light is not smaller than 5°. Send grain side some cross section projection inside border geometric visibility top of corner before not mixing all mirroring the most.

Depend on overall arrangement (and 2 respectively after the car before the car, or one respectively of vehicle both sides)

The car must be allocated in 6m car and trailer while growing up; The vehicle commander is not greater than 6m car and trailer and select to load.

Function of parking lamp can open vehicle and one side ago at the same time. And then the location light is come to realize.

Exertion. If select for use, its function should from before, after location the
indicators of the lights finish.

With after location light compound, and light with applying the brake or after while mixing, at light of applying the brake fog light or after fog light, while lighting, characteristic of luminosity can be revised.

So very true, and you made some excellent points here.
It is a ‘bad’ but funny habit! To be honest I do it all the time as I travel a lot between European countries. But at least it makes me walk around with a huge ‘grin’on my face!
Have a nice weekend Catherine!

Great laughs! If someone want some from English to Spanish I can contribute. Just with the shop signs and advertisement in New York we can laugh for a while. You are so very right Catherine, it becomes maniac!

It was really so funny..!! I would say grammatical mistakes are very common when it comes to translation and sometimes it result in funny mistranslation and you can not stop yourself to laugh. However, it can be avoided by properly proof reading or also you can consult a professional translation service provider and it will sure help in this matter.